#there is no Juliet. just Sirius as drag queen Mercurio

[c0mbatchameleon]

Hiii how y’all doing just here to drop a random snippet

The midnight lighting sweeps over James’ skin, casting soft shadows. Specks of glitter along his eyelids—no doubt Dorcas’ doing, damn her—twinkle like individual stars. A night sky painted over this sculpture of a face, of a boy. Eyes crinkled in laughter, cheeks blossoming.

The music is muffled, as if they really are underwater, at the bottom of some sea, and Regulus is swimming in it. The beat pierces through the waves, resonating in the floor beneath him and straight through to his chest. Or maybe that’s just his heartbeat. Or James’. Maybe the room is just one big heartbeat.

Regulus is so lost in it all he doesn’t notice when neither of them are laughing anymore.

James’ eyes, gold and glittering, sweep over Regulus’ face in interest. “Who did your makeup?”

His mouth feels dry as he replies, “Pandora.”

James raises a hand gently and hesitantly, holds his fingers out by the younger boy’s face, like the iridescent lines sloped across it have some sort of pull. “Can I?”

Regulus holds his breath. And nods.

He watches the pure wonder strewn across James’ expression as he softly traces the lines—beneath his eyes, across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, above his eyebrows and then below. It’s a ghost of a touch and it’s leaving trails of white-hot flame. Regulus keeps himself as still as possible, breaths shallow, like the slightest movement might scare him and his touch away.

“So pretty,” James murmurs, so softly it’s not clear if he knows he said it out loud.

“Uh- yeah,” Regulus stutters, “she’s good at makeup.”

The tracing continues dangerously close to Regulus’ lips as James speaks in almost a whisper. “Oh. Yeah, the makeup too.”